Taliaferro to make trip to Ohio St.

He'll enter field where a journey to inspiration began with spinal injury.

October 24, 2002|By Mark Wogenrich Of The Morning Call

He says he has no anxiety about going back there, to the field where his football career ended, where his life changed. In fact, Adam Taliaferro says, he's eager to go.

"A lot of people think it's weird the way I'm taking it," he said. "But I think it's going to be nice to be on that field again, especially for a big game. I'm really looking forward to it."

Taliaferro, the former Penn State cornerback, will join the team this weekend when it visits unbeaten Ohio State. The road trip will be Taliaferro's first since 2000, when he was a freshman with an unlimited football future.

That future was altered radically on a dreary September day at Ohio Stadium. Taliaferro broke his fifth cervical vertebra attempting a tackle in the fourth quarter. The next day, doctors told his family that Taliaferro had a 3-percent chance of walking again.

But after spinal fusion surgery and three months in three hospitals, Taliaferro walked out of Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia under his own power on Jan. 5, 2001.

Since then he has regained his ability to walk and is able to jog for short stretches. He has forsaken daily rehab to rejoin his teammates in the weight room, where he has resumed a lifting program. Doctors say he could return to full normal function within three years.

Taliaferro also became a student assistant coach, working alongside defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, and led the team onto the field for the 2001 season-opener against Miami. He resumed his classwork at Penn State in May 2001 and is on track to graduate after the fall 2004 semester. He has plans to attend law school and possibly become a sports agent.

"He's a walking miracle," said quarterback Zack Mills, also one of Taliaferro's roommates. "He's an inspiration and motivation as well. When you don't feel like going to practice, you look at him and know that, despite all he went through, he'd give an arm or a leg to go out and practice if he could."

Taliaferro is making his second trip to Columbus; he returned in April of last year to thank the Ohio State training staff that assisted him immediately after the injury. This time, however, he will walk on the Ohio Stadium field where he played his final football game.

"He didn't walk off the field last time, so to see him walk on it [Saturday], that's greatness right there," defensive tackle Anthony Adams said.

Since Taliaferro's recovery, several teammates and coaches have reminisced about the kind of player he was. Last week, Bradley said Taliaferro was a potential first-round NFL draft pick who would be among the Big Ten's best cornerbacks right now. He said Taliaferro's absence dramatically altered the composition of Penn State's secondary.

"He's a natural," Adams said. "Some of the plays he made -- he'd be backpedaling and make an interception or bat the ball down. He made it look so easy. He was so young, so smart and made so many plays, the older guys really trusted him."

When that weighs on Taliaferro's mind, he simply takes a few steps.

"Nothing compares to playing," he said. "But before I got hurt, football was life or death. Every time I think about that I realize that I could have been in a wheelchair for the rest of my life."